


Hogwarts is Magic Snips

by Blackmarch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: AU, Awkward, Crack Played Straight, F/F, F/M, Funny, Hilarious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-06 10:12:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13409064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackmarch/pseuds/Blackmarch
Summary: All the snips for a, after plenty of votes and likes, new fic that is coming out. A spin-off of Tantric is Magic. A SFW fic where Hermione Hebert goes to Hogwarts and learns the magic of the natives. A good deal of the context can be found here...http://archiveofourown.org/works/11508537/chapters/25824003None of these will be in any particular order, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!





	1. Chapter 1

"I don't think this is a good idea," Harry mumbled mulishly as Hermione led him up the path to her house...and he had to admit. It was rather nice. A slice of non-standard suburbia that didn't look it had come off a cookie sheet. Three stories tall and covered in ivy, surrounded by plants and flowers of all kinds like some kind of fairy tale... In other words, the exact opposite of his relative's house. He thought it was rather nice. "We've only just become friends and all, and I don't think that—"  
  
"They'll love you, you daft git." Hermione was quick to disabuse him of the notion that her parents would take offense to his presence. In his defense though, that was actually what he was used to and it was hard to think about it going any other way. "You're a young boy and I'm bringing you home." Her tone turned dry. "Mum will be all over you. Dad too for that matter."  
  
"Your Dad?" Harry asked nervously. The stakes had just risen rather sharply and he wasn't at all comfortable with that. "Why would he be all over me?"  
  
"She, actually.  _She'll_ be glad to meet you."  
  
Harry paused and took a moment to process that while his friend started hitting the doorbell. Actually  _hitting_  it. With her fist. Hard enough to shake the house.  
  
"And you smell like Fate and Dark Magic. It'll be a big thing. You'll see. I bet you've even got a prophecy about you somewhere."  
  
"... I  _smell_?" Harry mentally slapped himself before those words even came out of his mouth but couldn't help saying them anyway.  
  
"Like Fate and—" Hermione cut herself off in the middle of her agreement to jump up and forward when the door opened, catching a blonde woman in the chest with her full weight and that of her book-stuffed trunk...and not even making her budge. It was oddly nice to know that Hermione's Trollish strength wasn't something that was special to her...it wasn't  _freakish_. "Hi, Mum! I haven't seen you in forever!"  
  
"Hello, Hermione. I've missed you too," The blonde snickered as she patted her daughter's hair...and then she looked at him. Grinned in a way that showed far too many teeth as she  _looked into his very soul_. Or, at least, that's what it felt like. Like he was being dissected before she let up. Her smile became normal again and his heart started beating once more...and she became startlingly pretty. "And who's this? Your boyfriend?"  
  
"Mum!" Hermione slapped her mother's shoulder and blushed. "He's just a friend!"  
  
"You act as if I've never heard that one before. But please, Mr. Potter." Putting her whining daughter down, she rolled her arm in a fancy gesture to point into the rest of the house. "Come in and be welcome."  
  
Harry stared a little before more. Received a stare back from Hermione's mother that had nowhere near the intensity of the first...then nodded as the right words came to mind. "Thank you, Ma'am... You have a lovely house." And, for once, he meant it.  
  
"Such a little gentleman," she cooed as he made his way past her. He had to suppress the shiver that went through him as a surge of static put his hair on end as he walked through the door. "A real keeper."  
  
"Muuuuuum! Stoooooop!"  
  
"Oh, hush." Mrs. Hebert was quick to reply. "What are you doing here messing about with me anyway? Go give your friend a tour around the place or something." She then pushed her daughter a bit. Playfully. The fact that Hermione  _did_  move, even if she didn't want to, didn't escape Harry's attention in the slightest. "I'll call you down when the Treacle Tart is done."  
  
So that's what that smell was... He'd never smelt it in the middle of cooking before.  
  
"Alright," Hermione said grumpily as she took hold of Harry's hand and stuck her tongue out at her mother's back. "Whatever you say, Mum." Turning to Harry with a beaming smile on her face, she gave his hand a tug. "We'll start off with the best place in the house then and work our way down from there."  
  
"... Is it the library?"  
  
"... Has anybody told you that you're no fun, Harry?"  
  
==========  
  
"And over here is the bathroom. The guest one, I mean. This is important." Hermione nodded. "You really don't want to walk into the other ones."  
  
"Why not?" Harry blinked as he took in the restroom. It's size. It's grandeur... The bathtub could be used as a swimming pool. This was the one for  _guests_? "Is there something wrong with them?"  
  
"No. It's just best because you never know who might be in them." Hermione replied vaguely before pulling him onward. "Now though, it's time for, not the best place in the house, but the most important."  
  
Harry stiffened as he was brought up to a door. A thick one... Thick wood. Engraved with things he'd  _seen_  before, etched into just about everything Hermione owned. The wall it was set into, just as thick and just as engraved...and was that childproofing he saw? The messages he was getting from this weren't at all conflicting and... That was sarcasm. "What is it, Hermione?"  
  
"Well..." Hermione punched the door three times, same as she did the button out front...and the door swung open on its own accord. "It's my Dad's workshop."  
  
Harry couldn't help it when his jaw dropped open. He couldn't help the gawking he did as he was led around the many bubbling things. The many glowing things. The small aquarium that, somehow, gave the impression that it was actually much bigger than it looked filled with squirming things...and the balls of what looked to be glittering pink  _stars_  bouncing around a giant, floating snowglobe.  
  
" _Bloody hell."_ He whispered.  
  
It was like looking at Diagon Alley or Hogwarts for the first time all over again.  
  
"Language, Harry," Hermione uttered half-heartedly. "Dad? Are you here? Are you—decent?"  
  
"A moment, Hermione! Do you have your friend with you?" A most decidedly  _female_  voice called out from...somewhere. Somewhere far back, behind everything they could see...and, this time, Harry  _did_ shiver when the static hit. Every word had been something he'd felt in his  _bones_. "Because, if you do—"  
  
"That's why I asked if you were decent, Dad!" Hermione gave Harry a quick and apologetic smile. "You need to see him!"  
  
"... Do I really? Alright then."  
  
When the most beautiful woman Harry had ever seen came around the corner in a bathrobe, Harry couldn't help but hide behind Hermione. To look for shelter behind the nearest solid object no matter what it may be. He couldn't help it.  
  
"Oh. Oh dear..." The woman took a step forward and Harry  _whimpered_. "I can smell it on you...Fate. Fate and—"  
  
It was like looking at a storm. A living, breathing storm with light for a body and galaxies for eyes... A storm that he was in the middle of. A storm that was  _looking right back at him_.  
  
"Dad! Stop! You're scaring him!"  
  
The storm flickered in front of his eyes and became the woman again. The most beautiful thing that Harry had ever laid eyes on...and the most terrible by far. He knew that if those eyes were ever turned on him again, he'd be... He wouldn't live through it a second time. He couldn't.  
  
"Hermione..." Harry croaked. Felt what felt like the dust of ages fall from him allowing him to move once more. "What—I thought—"  
  
"That's my father, Harry," Hermione replied soothingly as she turned around and caught the boy up in a hug. One that he returned because, well... Why bloody not? He was entitled to it after what had just happened. "And you're not going to die. That was just Dad being dramatic."  
  
"... Dramatic?" Another croak. He couldn't work up the energy needed to do much else at the moment. He was feeling very...drained.  
  
"Actually, I was going to—" The older woman clammed up with a cough as her daughter gave her a  _look_. "Yes. Dramatics. I'm very dramatic."  
  
"There? You see? Just Dad playing a prank. One that she's  _never_  going to do again, isn't that right?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
Harry, for some reason, didn't feel all that reassured by the constant assurances.  
  
"But, really. Enough...pranking. Yes." The older woman coughed again, even as she picked up a nearby snowglobe and gave it a shake. An empty snowglobe, which was rather odd...but she seemed happy with it, seeing how she nodded. She then picked up another and did the same. "Did you know you smell like Fate and Dark Magic?"  
  
"That's what I told him!"  
  
"Really?" Hermione's father—something that Harry wasn't quite able to get his head around—beamed. "Did you really?"  
  
"She did." Harry nodded stiffly.  
  
"Delightful! You're doing so  _well,_ Honey!" With a pair of snowglobes in either hand, she got closer to the both of them. It was only Hermione's hug and his own self-control that kept Harry from running like a frightened rabbit. He was utterly sure he'd just been traumatized. "Much better than I was at your age."  
  
"Am I?" Hermione asked hopefully, acting as if she wasn't in the process of keeping her best friend hostage while her father circled them like an unbelievably attractive vulture. "How much better?"  
  
"Quite a bit, actually." She nodded. "You're as strong as I was when I was fifteen or so."  
  
Hermione squeed.  
  
"Um... Mrs. Hebert?" Harry winced as she lowered her head, leading to it getting even with his face as she adjusted her glasses and started to squint...and he wasn't sure but was this what puberty felt like? This feeling of danger and the need to go towards it? "What are you doing?"  
  
"Medical diagnosis...and please call me Taylor. Mrs. Hebert is my wife's name." She adjusted her glasses again. Squinted some more...directly at his scar before she made a small humming noise that set his bones to rattling again. "I see... This won't be difficult at all... Fix up that ward you're attached to as well while I'm at it. Has a good base...love-based even...but someone fucked it up good and proper. I'm surprised it's still working, honestly. Full of holes."  
  
"Ward?" Harry licked his lips and stared, wide-eyed as a pair of fingers started coming alarmingly close to his forehead. What ward?"  
  
"In a moment." With a downwards swipe that made Harry yelp...then relax into Hermione's arms as the weight of the entire world fell off his shoulders, Taylor pulled away. Held up her fingers, coated in what looked like living ink, and sniffed. "Disgusting thing. How no one caught onto this I have no idea." Wiping her fingers on one of the snowglobes in a disgusted motion, the whole thing turned an inky black...which is when she threw it into the aquarium. The screams ended quickly...and what was this warm feeling in his chest? "Soul parasites are no laughing matter."  
  
Hermione made a quietly disgusted and agreeable noise. "Medical care on their end could be better."  
  
"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Hermione...and thank you for introducing me to your friend. He seems like a nice boy."  
  
"He really is, Dad."  
  
"Tired..." Harry sighed, feeling surprisingly childish but not caring a whit for it as he allowed Hermione to take over standing for him. Hermione didn't seem to notice at all but if she did... Best friend for life. Taylor laughed. "When's bed?"  
  
"Soon...but not now."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Treacle Tart."  
  
"... You make a very convincing argument."


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione, arms crossed and mouth set in an especially impressive scowl that she'd copied off of her mother and perfected through the use of a mirror, glared at the first year in front of her. The first year busily not doing anything but standing with a vacant smile and a rather odd pair of spectacles high up on her forehead. She couldn't allow this to go on for any longer than it already had... Which is why she'd dragged the girl into a disused classroom for a talk.  
  
"You're a Witch, aren't you?" Straight to business.  
  
"A witch?" Luna's eyebrows rose minutely. Just a touch. Hermione got the idea that, even if there were no words spoken, she'd just been called an imbecile. The glasses sliding down at that moment, giving the younger girl the look of a demented owl, didn't help Hermione's temper at all. "Of course I'm a witch. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't..." She trailed off, confirming several of Hermione's suspicions at once with a glance. "Oh. Oh, my... So  _many_..."  
  
"None of that," Hermione snapped as she pulled the glasses off of the other girl's face, "Focus!" A couple magic-laden snaps of the fingers led to the blonde doing just that. Her eyes cleared up a bit and she stood the slightest amount straighter. A marked improvement. "Don't play with me. I know the signs. I can taste it on you." Hermione then started to hiss, " _Who is your teacher?_ "  
  
Hermione's dad got like this sometimes. A relic of a misspent childhood, supposedly. Too much, too fast... But bloody hell, this girl was  _eleven_  at the most! Dad was getting an owl later, that was for sure.  
  
"... Signs? Teacher?" Luna mumbled. "Don't know about  _signs **—**_ but I don't... What are you even talking about?"  
  
"What emotion are you using?" Hermione pushed onward, an answer and a question all at once that made Luna's head  _finally_ snap upwards in recognition...and more than a little fear. "Joy? Love? Loyalty?"  
  
She continued to stare at Hermione in horror.  
  
"Not one of the darker ones, obviously, or you'd be trying to eat my fingers at this point... But out with it." Different emotions. Different treatment.  
  
"... Lust."  
  
"Excuse me?" Hermione asked, aghast... It really did explain the last name though. Very on the nose. Obvious actually.  
  
"It's Lust." Luna turned her head to the side, unable to look at Hermione directly as she repeated herself with a heavy blush. "Family has been doing it for centuries. Family magic. It isn't any of your business whether I have a teacher or not _..._ but I've been learning from books that my mum left me before she died. Please don't tell anyone."  
  
Hermione continued to stare. This sounded familiar.  
  
"It's worked well enough so far, even if the Ministry doesn't like us doing it and we've lost a lot because of it...and did you know you glow like the sun? Wrackspurts burn when they get close to you." And there went the lucid period. Here returned the vacant smile. "It's very pretty."  
  
==========  
  
An owl fluttered happily through the window of a three-story house in London... then flew out, panicking and no longer happy as the whole building began to shake.  
  
"DAMN IT, TAYLOR! MY SOUFFLE!"  
  
"SORRY, HONEY!"  
  
The neighbors ignored it all. As usual. They were nice that way...and they knew better.


	3. Chapter 3

Brenda Smith, mother of two and the most devoted housewife—whenever Mr. Smythe wasn't about of course—in all of Surrey, knew that today, of all days, was going to go down in infamy. The talk of all the gossip circles until they were old and grey.  
  
A Rolls-Royce had just turned into their street. The make and model she couldn't be sure of, seeing how that was more the province of her sons...but it was, without a doubt, a Rolls-Royce. Perfectly maintained. A cherry red paint job polished to a near-blinding sheen. The sort of shine that brought planes out of the air due to inadvertent blinding that only the truly, splendidly rich could afford...and it was pulling up! On their street!  
  
Right next door!  
  
Brenda wasn't the only individual in their gardens to stop and rubberneck, their mouths open and tools hanging from limb hands as the Dursley's driveway gained a new occupant. A completely different beast that made the company vehicle that they were so proud of look like something that had come from the lot of a second-hand dealer of illicit goods.  
  
Oh how that would  _burn_ Petunia when the comparison came up. Not that Brenda would bring it up of course...even if Dursley had been getting a little too uppity lately. That was a job for other people. Just a couple of words to Melissa and it would be done with.  
  
Then, with the click of a latch, the door of the vehicle opened. A pair of heels clacked against the sidewalk...and a woman climbed out. Blonde. As perfectly formed as her car and with the most  _beautiful_  head of hair that Brenda had ever seen, much to her envy... It was that smile though, that most distinctive  _smile_ that forced Brenda to swallow that envy before she choked on it. The smile of a predator that had seen a wounded animal and wasn't willing to let it be.  
  
She'd never lost a case. She'd crushed everyone she'd ever been up against in what seemed to be perfect ease. A fairytale story, a woman rising to the top of her own firm in a male-dominated business to own it. One that  _made_ fairytale stories happen. Family reconciled. The wicked brought low and the good lifted high...with that damn  _smile_ on her face, every damn time.  
  
Brenda started to fan herself as she began to feel almost faint. Definitely giddy but most definitely faint.  
  
Lisa  _bloody_  Hebert was here! Here, in Surrey! On her street! The woman was already the talk of gossip circles everywhere as it was, and now she'd just made it worse! She was the most powerful lawyer in all of Britain! The Devil in Heels herself! Even the bloody  _Queen_ —Not that she believed it...but, from what she'd heard from Diana, who had heard it from Elizabeth, who had heard it from Tracy, it was true—listened to this woman when she spoke, lest she was sued for everything she owned, down to her smallclothes! Not that Brenda believed it, just to reiterate...but she  _had_  been seen walking out of the palace more than once or twice... There might be something there, actually.  
  
A couple of long strides later, a period of time that Brenda spent on moving the hose away as she finally noticed that she was overwatering her roses by a rather dreadful amount, and she was ringing the bell of Petunia's house. Once. Then a count of ten as the other, more successful blonde, looked at her watch. She then tried again, just in time to have Dudley open the door, chewing on a chocolate bar or some other form of sweet as was normal for him.  
  
Brenda didn't care what Petunia or anyone else at the meetings said. The boy was a perfectly horrid little monster... Not even a scratch on their ward of course, but still. There were few that were, really. Petunia really was a sweet thing, having taken the little bastard in like she had. Brenda was surprised that Dudley turned out as well as he had, with that sort of influence about.  
  
Some talk was had between the two. The no doubt perfect diction of the lawyer and the garbled, fat bloated mumblings of the pig-in-the-wig before, after deciding that he'd taken up enough of his better's time, he called for his mum... Oh, how quickly that sour expression changed. The fakest and most brittle of smiles slid onto her face, but didn't quite reach her eyes—she'd never quite gotten the hang of dealing with surprises, the poor thing—before she introduced the woman in for a spot of tea.  
  
And, with a considering look that somehow made that already sharp smile turn positively deadly... The devil accepted the offer.  
  
It would be another hour before Brenda saw them again.  
  
==========  
  
Lisa hated this. Hated the place. Hated the people. Fuck, she even hated that stupid little television that someone had mocked up to make it look like something from the 80's and the perfectly aligned pictures on the walls.  
  
This whole house was  _wrong_. Too sterile. Too...dead. No individuality. Not an original thought in anyone's head. Just the petty, small-minded thoughts and actions of petty, small-minded people.  
  
Lisa thanked Petunia as she laid a cup of tea down in front of her. An automatic reaction after years of living with the equivalent of a tea dispensary for over fifteen years now. A sip was had and Lisa was, barely, able to keep herself from gagging. It just wasn't the same. No love. No care. Just as dead as everything else.  
  
How anyone could think that Harry, the little cinnamon roll that he was, was a criminal was beyond Lisa's comprehension. They'd been believing that shite—the Britishisms crept deeper into her with every day—since he was  _two_! Two years old! What the fuck was wrong with these people?  
  
Was there something in the water? She'd have to get someone to check.  
  
The blonde carefully put her cup down as she continued her examination of Petunia. Her mannerisms. Her movements. The way she interacted with her son, the little shit and the way he whined and blathered on in return before he went up the stairs... Alright. Some of that might not have been fair. She was biased...but this whole situation bothered her, and she wasn't feeling all that forgiving at the moment.  
  
She could afford to not be. She'd worked hard for that privilege.  
  
When Petunia sat down to entertain her guest, she found the woman she'd brought into her house was no longer there. There were no smiles. There were no pleasantries. There was only the look of a wolf. No, worse. A  _lawyer_  that was about to tear into your hide.  
  
Fun fact. Fuck with someone that a wolf likes and they will literally eat your face for it. Same with lawyers.  
  
"I've heard some interesting things about you and your family, Mrs. Dursley." Lisa folded her hands under her chin and watched as Petunia started to turn the color of old milk. It wasn't even noteworthy these days, honestly. It was a rather average color these days when people found out who the oppositions barrister was. "But I won't' bother you with the usual 'perfect little family' noise you normally hear from your circle." Lisa nodded at the folder she'd left on the table. "An interesting bit of reading, that. Like something straight out of the Daily Mail...and all about your nephew."  
  
Some color returned to Petunia's face. Spots of red high on her cheeks. Rage and embarrassment as she started to sputter.  
  
"Such terrible things I've heard," Lisa murmured. "An orphaned one-year-old boy is left in your care after his parents, a pair of drunks on the dole, ended their lives in a drunken car crash. You take the boy in out of the goodness of your heart. Raise and care for him as well as you are able no matter the  _burden_  he is on you...and how ungrateful he is about it all, the little hoodlum. Him and his criminal ways have left you at wit's end but you're  _family_."  
  
"... Yes. Yes, of course." Petunia started to calm down as she gave Lisa a nod. She was starting to feel safer about things oddly enough. "I promise that, if he's done anything to you—"  
  
Ah. That was it. She was hoping for a scapegoat. Probably for something her son had done. He'd seemed the type to get up to things he shouldn't, and she'd barely even looked at him.  
  
"No, no." Lisa shook her head. "I'm fine. Just...concerned. The whole situation has me worried."  
  
"Oh. I see." Petunia continued to relax...and Lisa sharpened her knife. "I appreciate the concern, but we have it well in hand."  
  
"I don't think you do." Lisa leaned forward and flipped the folder open to near the end.  
  
Petunia choked as she saw the most terrible set of papers available to legalism. She'd just been served.  
  
"From what I understand, forcing a two-year-old, criminal or not..." The sarcasm in Lisa's voice was palpable, "to live under the stairs when you have a perfectly serviceable extra room, up until he's eleven, is not something a law-abiding citizen does. Nor does a law-abiding citizen withhold food from said child."  
  
"HE'S LYING!" Petunia stood up with a shriek. Lisa was as intimidated of her as she was of tissue. "THE LITTLE MONSTER IS—"  
  
"I'll be sure to tell your son what you think of him," Lisa interrupted as she stood up herself, causing Petunia to gasp and start gaping like a fish. "He was an absolute wealth of information for the all of five minutes we spoke." Lisa sniffed. "The boy turned a simple question and answer into an out-and-out circus. You should be proud."  
  
Lisa wasn't lying about that. All she'd done was ask where Harry was, and he'd been quick to retort with 'Dad locked him in the room'. Or something of the sort. He'd been rather busy at the time with his fistful of chocolate and it had made his speech more than a little difficult to put together, even with her power. It had been all downhill from there...and it was quite likely that, if Lisa tried, she could go for a second case of child abuse, just from that.  
  
No child should be so...blase, about what was technically slavery in this day and age. So full of unthinking hate... Nor should they be so fat.  
  
She’d seen fatter, of course...but it was like the boy  _oozed_ fatness. Like he was the essence of fat and sloth in child form. It was disturbing.  
  
"It...it was just..." Petunia put on a hasty, crooked smile. "Just childhood imaginings. That's all. He must have been talking about a game. Boys will be boys and all that. We treat the boy as well as could be expected for such a...a beast. So..."  
  
"I see. Just a game." Lisa nodded coldly as she reached for her cell. "One played by a little boy and a  _beast_."  
  
".... What are you doing?" Petunia stopped, then took a step forward, hand outstretched for calm.  
  
"Calling the Chief Constable for Surrey. This is an obviously unsafe environment and—" Lisa flipped open a knife just before Petunia lunged at her and her phone. The horsey looking woman aborted that lunge then quickly and quietly backed away. "And now we can add attempted assault and theft to the charges. Do keep going."  
  
She didn't need the knife, honestly, but it was much more intimidating than her bare hands...and it wouldn't involve paperwork as long as she didn't use it. Much of it anyway.  
  
"You can't!" Petunia continued shaking her head and shaking at the first nine. "You can't make him leave!"  
  
"I doubt it will be all that hard to make him. He'll be glad to get away from this place." Lisa replied before she hit the next nine. "I know that I would be. Also, calm yourself. I know that life without an underage, underfed slave constantly cleaning your shithole of a house sounds like a terrible one, but pull yourself together, woman.”  
  
“I mean you  _can’t_!” Petunia hissed, terrified out of her wits as she took a step forward. “There are  _people_  watching this house! The worst sort of people! Freaks and vagrants and...and—”  
  
“The magicals. I know.” Lisa rolled her eyes as she held her thumb over the last nine. “You’ll find that a great deal of people in my position, or close to it, has an idea of their existence.” She narrowed her eyes slightly. “You’ll also find that the Queen is not amused with your treatment of the prophesied savior of Britain and the Commonwealth. Besides the wards are already on something better. No use keeping him here.”  
  
“... The Queen?” Petunia rasped. “Prophesied savior? Wards?”  
  
“And neither am I amused. Harry, from what I’ve seen of him so far, is a rather nice young man.” Lisa ignored Petunia’s questions. She wasn’t even really cognizant of what Lisa was saying at this point anyway. No point in answering. “Too nice for you and your lot, and far too small. Neither did I appreciate you calling my daughter ‘the worst sort of person’." She hit the last nine. “Now, please. Be quiet while I talk to the nice police officer and child services.”  
  
Petunia lunged again, only running on adrenaline and panic before she got backhanded into a wall. A picture fell and broke. It had been ugly, so whatever.  
  
“Bad move, Petunia...and I also need to talk to him about this ‘Marge’ person… Animal cruelty, maybe? Tax evasion? Let’s see what we can tack on...”  
  
She wasn't looking forward to the paperwork for this one, but it was well worth it. Satisfying even.  
  
==========  
  
This wasn’t going to be just the biggest round of gossip their, now smaller, circle had ever had—  
  
Brenda watched through a window, with a kettle at hand and glee in her heart, as Petunia was dragged out of her home in cuffs. Dragged out to join her husband, roaring and kicking at the back seat about freaks and how he should have drowned his young ward when he’d found them on the stoop.  
  
—this was going to be the biggest  _anyone_ had ever had and...oh my, oh my...was that the children, climbing into the back of the Rolls-Royce with Mrs. Hebert?  
  
Now that was  _tasty_ …  
  
==========  
  
Barely before the day was out, and before Brenda could spread that one theory she’d thought up where Lisa Hebert enjoyed the company of  _much_ younger men… Her husband walked in to find her with Mr. Smythe and a bottle of anniversary wine. Needless to say, she had much bigger problems to worry about from then on.  
  
The police were called in for the second time that day…and it was a damn good week for rumors.


	4. Chapter 4

"Stupid bloody..." Hermione glowered at her Dad-brand phone as she typed at it. A rapid, mental staccato that, in but a moment, was sent off to her mother. A transcript of her day so far and how much it had sucked. Mum always had the best advice about things...like how the best revenge was revenge, and that living well came after. "Why are boys so bloody  _stupid_? I was just trying to help. Why is that a bad thing?"  
  
The next time she saw Ron trying and failing to do something worthwhile, she'd let him flounder. See how he liked getting held back a year, the ginger twat. Really, how hard was it to speak nonsense latin? He'd grown up with the shite while  _she_ had been speaking the real thing since she was four. What was his excuse?  
  
"Wingardium fucking Leviosa," Hermione grumbled as she put away her phone. A guilty thrill ran through her even as she looked around, ready for the home equivalent of a spanking. Then, she remembered she wasn't home and she brightened right up. Being able to swear whenever you felt like was unexpectedly freeing. She'd have to be careful not to make it too much of a habit though. "Should Wingardium Leviosa my boot right up his arse. Show him who's a know-it-all when he knows the taste of my shoe polish."  
  
That wouldn't end well. For mum, mostly...but it wouldn't exactly be all roses on her end either because Dad was funny like that and... Oh,  _hell_.  
  
Hermione held her nose and gagged as she inadvertently inhaled the stench of raw sewage and summer cooked garbage. A delightful bouquet of maggoty meat and rancid jockstrap with just a hint of rampant stupidity to round it all off. Being able to smell magic was a delight at times, but at others...and what made that sort of smell anyway? Had the twins modified a dung bomb and left it somewhere nearby?  
  
Before Hermione could vacate the premises to tear the twins a new one over something they hadn't already done, which was always a worthwhile endeavor since they were always up to something, the door blew up. She really had no other way to say it than that. With a crash and the sound of splintering wood being turned to sawdust, a club came through the bathroom door.  
  
"Uh-oh."  
  
After the club, of course, came the troll. A fully grown mountain troll...which explained the scent and its intensity. Her physical senses had compounded her magical, making it much worse than it should have been. Now that he was in the same room as her though, she almost vomited. It was hard not to, even as she slid into a practiced pose and she sank into herself.  
  
She'd never had the chance to do this before, but she was sure she'd do fine. Hopefully. Her father had made this for her after all.  
  
The troll, instead of swinging at her when he had the chance, stared dumbly at her as she walked up to him. Just...walked up to him. No doubt, this was something completely new to the stupid thing. The number of creatures of her size that would, willingly, walk up to a fully grown and aware mountain troll could be counted on a single hand. Nundu for one...and now he was just trying to process it.  
  
That moment of what passed for thought among his species meant his downfall.  
  
With a considering look at his shin, one that ended with a nod, Hermione reared her foot back and kicked him in that shin. A movement that she'd practiced by playing footie with the other children before they'd learned she could kick a ball hard enough to cause sonic booms if she tried, turned to combat.  
  
His shin snapped like a piece of dry wood. Loud and gross. Once again, proving just how utterly  _stupid_  he was, he continued to stare. Up until the pain finally reached his brain and he bent forward to grab his leg. An action that proved to be another bad move as, when he leaned down, Hermione's knee was already rising to meet his face.  
  
This time, when his nose imploded like a badly treated watermelon being introduced to a hammer, he noticed. A state of affairs that Hermione believed to be due to the fact that the pain had a much smaller journey to go through before it reached its destination. He, once again, bellowed as he found himself going in the reverse of his intentions. Bending  _backward_  where Hermione, after having slid between his legs, was already waiting for him.  
  
Another knee, this time to the back of his head, pushed him back to his feet. Then forward again as his shin decided that enough was enough and gave up the ghost with another loud snap. Hermione though, having decided that enough was most definitely  _not_  enough in an adrenaline and magically fuelled rampage, had run up a nearby wall, jumped off of it, and dropkicked the troll in the arse, sending the poor, dumb animal headfirst through the opposite wall...and so he stayed.  
  
And so, Hermione realized what she had done.  
  
"Dad! NO! WHY!?" Hermione clutched at her face. Freaked out. Some hyperventilating was done and she proved that she was her father's daughter without a doubt... The only thing missing here, which was something that Hermione was fine with, was her searching the bodies for a wallet before she ran out into the hallway and  _away_ from the scene of what might have technically been a crime. "I trusted you!"  
  
Hermione's mother hadn't skimped on the details of their early days together, much to her father's embarrassment. Hermione really should have known better... Hindsight and all that.  
  
After the second corner was turned, it was only Hermione's reflexes that kept her from making smears of the two boys that had appeared in her way. Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. Of course.  
  
"Hermione! Thank Merlin we found you!"Ron yelled even as he grabbed her hand and started pulling her towards the tower. "There's a troll in the castle!"  
  
"We noticed you weren't there and we couldn't have just left you to fend for yourself!" Harry continued as he grabbed her other hand, leaving Hermione oddly touched that the both of them had been worried enough to brave a  _troll_ to find her and get her to safety. Sure, she'd been able to deal with the problem herself, but it was the thought that counted. "Also, Ron is really sorry!"  
  
"I'm really sorry!"  
  
"That's nice and all...and I appreciate the apology..." Hermione chuckled nervously as she took over running for herself. The equivalent of a light jog for her, a near sprint for the boys. "But maybe we can talk about this  _after_  we're safe from the troll?"  
  
The boys obviously agreed, seeing how they didn't say anything else until they returned to the tower. After that, Hermione couldn't have shut them up if she tried.  
  
It was the start of a beautiful, if somewhat awkward, friendship.  
  
==========  
  
"Dear, lord." Professor Dumbledore muttered as he started extracting the insensate and brutalized troll him and his colleagues had found embedded in the wall of the girl's bathroom. "I have no idea what happened here, sadly...but whatever happened to this poor thing will, most likely, leave it with a dreadful case of anxiety and a permanent limp... However did it get in, I wonder?"  
  
Professor Quirrell, proving himself to be as competent as he ever was, fainted once more.  
  
Severus, looking as dour as ever, held out a hand.  
  
Minerva sighed and handed Severus his galleons.


	5. Chapter 5

Abhorsen the owl was an owl of many qualities. He was large. He was strong. His feathers had a most illustrious sheen. Every chick he had sired upon a hen had grown up to lead long, successful, healthy lives at the top of their chosen fields. Be it hunter, common house pet, or mailer, they'd all been something to be proud of in their own little ways.  
  
That wasn't bad for an owl. Not at all... Or so Taylor thought to herself as she took the daily newspaper off of one of the many, many offspring of her very own owl. Said owl was busily preening his son, doing the avian version of the parental talk even as she laid out a tray of owl biscuits for them both and took the paper.  
  
It may have been rather time-consuming, but her little adventure in owl-breeding had been on point. A smarter, more competent mail carrier was always a boon. She hadn't lost a bundle of mail for over ten years now... The fact that she'd lost over two hundred pounds on that moment burned her still.  
  
The Royal Post could blow it out their ass.  
  
The younger of the two owls looked rather put out about everything, but he was quite willing to allow his father to fuss over him like a good little owl while Taylor looked over the Quibbler—a most reputable paper, much better than that Prophet rag as long as you read it upside down—and slipped him a couple of knuts. Two for the job well done, the rest as a bacon tip on the owl market. He looked quite a bit happier then, leaving Taylor confident that she'd just done her good deed for the day as she decided to take a look at the things she'd been given.  
  
Death Eaters still free. The ongoing investigation into the sudden disappearance of Professor Quirrell. The most dubious assertions of competence by the former Professor Lockheart and the raising of a Heliotrope army in Southern Finland. All very dark tidings, yes, but nothing that  _quite_  needed her touch. Not yet anyway. That last one might get a little dicey though.  
  
And so, Taylor whiled her time away. Got a peck from Lisa that earned the blond a pinched bottom in return. A squeak, a slap, a giggle and a promise of something more later that night was had over breakfast. A real and true English Breakfast **—she _still_ couldn't get over that—**with  _tea_. If anything were to be considered a point as to what constituted a superior civilization, then it would be tea that was the decider.  
  
Tea that she'd just spewed all over the paper, much to Lisa's silent amusement as she ate her oatmeal.  
  
Abhorsen looked over at her, finally freeing his son from the travails of familial bondage, where he then fluttered away with a promise to get started on a family sometime soon.  
  
Taylor was just grateful that the children were still asleep, for multiple reasons. This wasn't exactly a very awe-inducing sight after all. Her dripping with tea, she meant. Otherwise, she was good enough... Right? Right. Of course.  
  
Hermione had turned out well enough after all. The very model of a healthy, strong child well on the way to a state of godhood. It almost brought a tear to Taylor's eye.  
  
Nope. Not almost. There it was.  
  
"What is it this time, Hon?" Lisa asked while she put down a couple of paper towels to soak up some of the runoff from Taylor's exclamation. "World peace? The end of hunger and greed? A way to get us back home?"  
  
"No!" Taylor shook her head and the paper in one. Mostly for the same reasons, that being moisture. "Even better!" After she was sure the paper was sufficiently dry, she slid it over to her wife and began bouncing in her seat. Something that Hermione had stopped doing when she was five, but so what? She was the adult, she could do what she wanted. "Look!"  
  
Lisa looked and drank her coffee. One of her eyebrows rose.  
  
Taylor continued to bounce.  
  
"The hell is a narglewumpf?"  
  
"Wait, shit." Taylor flipped the paper over. "Sorry. Now, look!"  
  
Lisa did. She also drank more coffee.  
  
"You know how we've been missing Hermione over the last few years? Because of school?" Taylor successfully suppressed her shudder and jabbed a finger at a  _very_ specific part of the paper. "I found a  _solution_!"  
  
The tea stains were quickly joined by that of coffee...and Abhorsen was off with a letter.  
  
This was going to be  _grand_!  
  
==========  
  
"And I'd like everyone to welcome their newest professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts," Dumbledore began pleasantly wrapping up his beginning of the year speech as the doors to the Great Hall opened with a bang and the crack of stone. Dust drifted down from the ceiling and people started covering their plates—in Hermione's and Harry's case, due to subconscious pattern recognition—or cowering under the nearest solid object in everyone else's. "Professor Hebert."  
  
"... What," Hermione whispered after a long pause.  
  
Harry silently held her. She returned it.  
  
Some of the food in Ron's mouth fell out. Hermione couldn't bring up the fucks required to care about it...and  _fuck_. She couldn't swear out loud anymore!  
  
"Hi, kids! Harry, Ron, Honey!" Taylor cheerily waved at her horrified daughter, her whole body absolutely  _covered_  in gold jewelry and robes and armor and weapons and various nuclear grade power suppressants that seared the eyes if you looked at them for too long and...unidentifiable  _things_  even as she spread her arms out for a hug. "I'm your new teacher! Isn't that grand!?"  
  
Someone coughed. More than a few people fell off their seats as they saw what looked and felt to be an actual, living,  _war goddess_  walk into their midst to pick up Hermione and her friends for a bone-cracking hug. Literally bone-cracking. One that Hermione returned around her father's neck with all of her might as Ron and Harry tried to kick their way to air and freedom, not that the older woman even seemed to notice.  
  
"We're going to have so. Much. FUN!"  
  
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"  
  
Dumbledore began to clap and the rest of the teachers, slowly, followed suit. Even Snape, who was trying to hide the tears in his eyes as the mark on his arm began to sizzle.


	6. My Not So Little Horsie: Friendship is Nice Too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A peek at what Taylor and Lisa are up to whenever Hermione is at school.

"Well. This is different." Taylor said, almost casually as she examined her new limbs from her position on the floor. The only thing that she had to be glad for, at this moment, was the fact that said floor was soft. Grassy...and it made her feel like rolling around in it like a child. Otherwise, she was more than a little put-out about things. "And I'm pretty sure that this isn't a human-centric reality... What do you think, Lisa?"  
  
Lisa, tongue out in concentration and on shaky legs, made to say something...but she tipped over instead with a squeak and a curse. Both of those things just made Taylor laugh because, with the way her wife was now, those things were just  _adorable_.  
  
Now she saw why all the girls when she was young had been so obsessed with getting a pony for their birthday. Cute. So very cute... She might have cavities now.  
  
"I think..." Lisa replied gloomily as she stared at the hooves that had replaced her hands. "That you've left the search parameters far too open, Taylor. Sapience and sentience does not imply humanity...or, at the least, humanoid architecture and physicality."  
  
"... That's true... But it can be fun sometimes, right?"  
  
After some more rolling around in the dirt in a way that Taylor found to be surprisingly refreshing, she flipped up onto her own hooves with an ease that was almost shocking. An ease that definitely shocked Lisa when Taylor started to trot around in small circles. Then the glumness came back, and the now blonde and purple little, winged  _unicorn_  was scowling at her.  
  
"More of that stuff from your great, great, great, great, something or other, huh?"  
  
Taylor shrugged. An odd feeling when you didn't' actually have shoulders as humans had them...but she did. And she was only what her ancestors had made of her...and now, she had to wonder how Hermione would fare. Maybe it was just her that found it easy? "Maybe?"  
  
Lisa sighed, already used to Taylor and her shenanigans in a way only a significant other could...and held out her hooves.  
  
"Carry me?"  
  
"Of course." With an instinctual burst of magic, one that, for some reason, came from her forehead—she had a horn too. Fancy that—Lisa floated up into the air in a purplish pink haze. She then flailed a bit. More squeaking was done...and then she was on Taylor's back, lightly beating her barrel with her hooves for a little bit before she fell still with a pout. "Comfortable?"  
  
"... Yes… Shut up..." Lisa mumbled, making Taylor grin as she picked a direction and started walking. "And go to the right a little. Civilization is that way."  
  
Taylor did so and continued to grin. She couldn't help it! She also knew Lisa wasn't as mad about this whole thing as she sounded!  
  
Lisa started moving around on her back, showing just how  _tiny_ she was in comparison to Taylor as she laid her head on the much bigger female's withers to take in the view. Forest. Forest for miles around and the greenest grass that either of them had ever seen. Beautiful.  
  
A bear took one look at them with his arms out as he stepped out from behind a tree with a roar on his muzzle. He paused. Didn't make a sound... Then sheepishly went back into the forest, looking very apologetic about things once he saw what he was about to roar at… How polite!  
  
New worlds were always so  _exciting!_ And surprisingly yummy looking!  
  
Barely catching herself from nibbling a leaf off of a nearby tree, Taylor continued onward, with her wife's laughter ringing in her ears.  
  
Curse this Equine body! Curse it!  
  
==========  
  
"You know, most parents spend the time their kids are away at school to get  _laid,_  Taylor," Lisa observed as they slipped out of the forest and crested a hill. One that happened to stand over a quaint and extremely colorful little village. One that had Taylor wondering, despite herself, if the buildings might have been edible with just how sweet they were. A little girl's dream come true...and that Gingerbread house wasn't helping its case...maybe just a taste? "Not get wrapped up in multiversal shenanigans that turn you into a completely different species to compensate for Universal laws so that they can look for their father."  
  
Taylor nodded... Thought a little. Had her brow furrow as she looked over her shoulder to give Lisa a quizzical look. "What does Hermione going to school have to do with us having sex?" That had never stopped them before. They'd just been quieter about it. "Also, I miss my dad...and Hermione needs a grandpa to spoil her."  
  
"... Damn. You're right about...all of that."  
  
Taylor giggled as she turned and began making her way down the hill. The whole way down. Laughter.  
  
"Yeah, yeah. Live it up, you big joker." Lisa muttered affectionately into Taylor's ear even as she slipped off of her back and onto her own four hooves. Still shaky, but not nearly so much as before. It was enough for her to keep pace, at the least. "I'm still winning in this relationship."  
  
"Whatever you say, dear...and that is a rather nice balloon, isn't it?" Taylor preferred to think of it as a mutual sort of thing. Winning, that is. Lisa was just needling her anyway. The only one that ‘lost’ these days in their relationship was the bed. They needed to make them stronger or something. “Nice place in general. Very sweet.”  
  
"It really is." Lisa agreed with a nod, looking painfully smug that she hadn’t fallen even once yet so far and that they were already on the road. That smugness might have been justified. "Haven't seen something like this in a while. It's nice.”  
  
“Right?”  
  
“Now, hopefully, as long as we don’t walk into yet  _another_  world ending event, it’ll stay—"  
  
“That only happened twice, Lisa,” Taylor interrupted quietly, even as she snuck a leaf off a bush...and wow. Even the plants tasted like candy. Weird, plant candy. Like taffy. “You’re making it sound a lot bigger than it really was.”  
  
Lisa pretended she didn’t hear Taylor and continued to talk. “—that way. Zombie worlds suck ass.”  
  
Taylor hummed in agreement, then snuck another leaf off of a separate bush. Caramel this time, and now she was starting to miss Wonka. What a nice young man…and such  _wonderful_  ideas. “The zombies were gross, but I’m pretty sure that there was just something wrong with the people there in general. They were kind of...”  
  
“Stupid.” Lisa looked over at Taylor with a raised brow, causing the taller horse among the two of them to stop chewing. She then smirked, and continued to walk, leaving Taylor with a vague sense of embarrassment as she did. “It was like they all wanted to die a horrible zombie death.”  
  
“Well…” Taylor mulled that over as, now that she’d been outed, she started sampling the wildlife openly. “I didn’t want to say it like that...but pretty much. Kind of gave up on them when their largest, closest thing to a civilization tried to beat us with bats so that they could rape us to death after we offered them a cure.”  
  
“Yeah. That was pretty bad.” Lisa agreed casually, her tone completely at odds with the subject matter as the both of them passed the sign declaring that they had reached the limits of the quaint little village known as ‘Ponyville’. So  _adorable_. “Almost as bad as that one time we went to Westeros.”  
  
Taylor swore and added more than a little power to it. The air turned  _blue_  and a bird fell from the air, stunned. One of the pony townsfolk, tending their garden, stared at the both of them with a slack jaw, twitched as some of the  _blue_  grazed them, then fell over in a faint as what Taylor assumed to be her sisters looked on in horror.  
  
==========  
  
All over Westeros, a great many people browned their pants. A White Walker melted in mid-stride for seemingly no reason. Terrible, terrible things happened to some very terrible, terrible people...and a small-time lord with some not-so-small ambitions rolled down some  _very_  long stairs.  
  
The bounce when Lord Baelish hit the bottom, ending up with him finding an errant jar of wildfire with his face, would be talked about in the local bars for many a year afterward by the survivors.  
  
==========  
  
It might have been a little much, cursing like that, but that was how Taylor felt just thinking about that place. It had put the both of them off of weddings forever. That was all she would say, could say, without going into a rage.  
  
“They deserve everything that happens to them,” Lisa agreed again as she scooped the bird up in her hooves without thinking. She then stared at her appendages with a frown before she shrugged and dropped the bird off at the side of the road. “Place was a shithole.”  
  
The bird pleasantly, if groggily, chirped a thank you to Lisa before he started hopping away somewhat drunkenly. The townsfolk just continued to stare, mouths open so far as to be cartoonish while Taylor and Lisa continued on their way into the town proper.  
  
And then, it got  _weird_.  
  
“... So what cultural taboo or social norm are we violating here?” Lisa muttered as her eyes scanned the slowly stopping and gawking shopping crowd, trying to figure out what separated them from the rest of the herd.  
  
It wasn’t the lack of clothes that was for sure. No one here wore anything larger than a hat. It wasn’t the coloration either. They were close enough to the various eye-searing shades that the others had that they didn’t really stand out... Maybe it was those odd tattoos the adults had on their butts?  
  
She glanced at Taylor’s, then her own hips analytically… Damn magic, always made this hard...muddled up the data all the time...but they weren’t blank, obviously, so it wasn’t that. Maybe the imagery?  
  
Taylor’s looked normal enough, for a given amount of normal when it came to a land of cupcakes, flowers, and candy patterned bottoms. A stylized symbol of Venus, with the planet as the top and a smattering stars around it to complete the arrangement. It kind of looked like it should have been airbrushed on the side of a van. But tastefully so. Car show worthy.  
  
As for hers… Well. Lisa had to suppress a cringe. A purple, stereotypical Illuminati symbol with golden rays coming off of it was rather off-putting. She didn’t rule the world from the shadows, sure...mostly by accident, but she didn’t. Not anymore.  
  
Taylor, the media, and apparently this world, would never let her forget that one interview with CNN that she’d done after eating a whole case of alcoholic chocolate. Mostly because she couldn’t get fat anymore, so why not, and she hadn’t known about the liquor. At least one PR consultant had cried afterward. Another had threatened to jump out a window before Lisa had talked him down.  
  
It had been a mess all around. One that was  _fixed_ , sure. Easily turned into nothing more than just a joke and some memory… But it still had the conspiracy nuts back home freaking out whenever she walked out of her house. Annoying.  
  
“Let’s go over there where there’s less...” Lisa trailed off lamely as the two of them scurried off, leaving the eerily staring group of equines behind. Hobbled in Lisa’s case, sure, but they got away and, after a few seconds, they finally managed to get to a comparatively deserted plaza. Only five ponies, versus the fifty or so that had been staring before. A marked improvement. “If this isn’t creepy, I don’t know what is.”  
  
“Yeah...” Was all Taylor could say as she looked around the place. That was strange even by their standards. Taylor hadn’t gotten that much gawking even when she was running around in her first ‘suit’. The one that she, every once in a while, pulled out of the closet for a bit of roleplay.  
  
Lisa couldn’t help but wonder how it would look on her now… Hilarious, most likely. That floating hair that Taylor had going on at the moment would just make it even better… Oooh.  
  
Just before Lisa brought up the difference that was having floating hair in a populace where floating hair didn’t seem to be the norm she felt something hit her side with the force of a truck. She saw the sky, it’s pretty clouds and it’s happy birdies...and then she found herself eating dirt. Or, at least, tasting it, considering she was face down and there was a quill tickling her nose.  
  
Who the hell used quills anymore?  
  
“Ow.” Lisa emoted as she tried to find her feet. Not exactly an easy task, considering how long it had taken her the first time...and George Orwell could bite her. Two legs good. Four bad.  
  
Yeah, sure, she knew that wasn’t the point of the book but she didn’t care. Her face hurt, and she had forgotten that she  _could_  hurt. Not exactly a pleasant feeling.  
  
“I’m so sorry!”  
  
Lisa looked up from her newly found position on the ground, more than just a little annoyed. Standing over her was an abundantly purple unicorn. An abundantly purple unicorn that had an even more purple lizard thing leaning against its side with an upraised brow.  
  
If it wasn’t for the life she lived, she would have assumed she had a concussion...or that Taylor had put something in her food again.  
  
“I’ll…” The unicorn started to say and then trailed off staring at them. “Huh.”  
  
Another gawker it looked like. What a surprise.  
  
“Uh, Spike?” She started again, looking and sounding somewhat shaky.  
  
“Yeah, Twilight?” The lizard responded.  
  
“Did I forget if Princess Celestia had any relatives? Because I could have sworn...”  
  
“We might be related,” Lisa interjected smoothly. “I couldn’t say.”  
  
Don’t confirm. Don’t deny. Let them come to their own conclusions, then get ready to take the path that happened to be the least troublesome at the time. Powers or not, she didn’t get to the top of the world with her powers alone.  
  
“Oh. I see...” The unicorn nodded to herself, looking even worse than before as she looked at the both of them and let out a shrill laugh. “That’s…” She bit her lip, hard, most likely to stifle a scream—Lisa grinned a bit at that, even as Taylor picked her up again—before she switched tacks. “So why are the two of you here? In Ponyville? Today?”  
  
Lisa glanced at Taylor, who glanced back at her.  
  
“Besides the Summer Sun Celebration, I mean!” A bit of the unicorn’s hair sprung out of place and her eyes started getting a little...wild as she took an assertive step forward. “Of course you’re here for that considering it’s the most important part of the year! You being here to watch me make  _friends_ instead is just crazy talk, right?! You’re not here to tell me that the tale of Nightmare Moon is an old mare’s tale with no basis in fact and that I should just give it up, right!?”  
  
Lisa had to take a step back for a moment. Taylor though, being Taylor, just looked on, vaguely interested as the tiny purple horse had what looked like the beginning of a nervous breakdown. One that seemed to come from some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder, insanely high expectations of herself, a lack of friends, and the close, personal attention of an extremely powerful authority figure for most of her life.  
  
This had gotten real deep, real quick...and it looked like Taylor had someone to talk shop with while they were here. Great.  
  
“Uh… Twilight?” The lizard nudged her side. Then he did it again, harder when her eye started twitching. “We kind of need to go organize stuff, remember? Not stare at—whoa!” A much deeper purple than Taylor’s own plucked the lizard off his feet and up into the air to drop him on the unicorn’s back with a flop. “Hey!”  
  
“No time for talking, Spike! Ponies are watching!” The unicorn just about shrieked as she started galloping down the road, the only thing keeping the lizard attached to her being his claws in her mane. “We’ve got work to do!” And then she was gone in a flash of light and the smell of lavender.  
  
Yum... Why was it yum? Stupid horse body.  
  
“... I’m not sure what I was expecting.” Lisa shrugged as Taylor clopped her hooves together in a semblance of an appreciative clap. “Thoughts, Taylor?”  
  
“She just did an on the spot Time/Space displacement while in the middle of what seemed to be extreme emotional distress!” Taylor continued to clap while Lisa rolled her eyes. “And, from what I can tell, she would be considered by the locals to be in her late teens! Such talent! Such…such passion for the Art!”  
  
Lisa gave her wife a blank look. One of the many, many of such that she’d given Taylor over the years. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, really. “... Thank you, Taylor.”  
  
“You’re welcome, Honey.”  



End file.
